Stick Together

As we put 2024 to bed with its defining moment of Federal Labor’s legislation placing the CFMEU Construction & General Division into administration it is worth considering the bedrock of workers struggle in this country, the first major event of post-colonial Australia the Eureka Stockade.  We go to the pre-dawn reclaim the radical spirit of Eureka event held in Ballarat on Dec 3 on the site of the original stockade where in 1854 the army and police attack miners for daring to call for the end of mining licenses and universal suffrage.

Special Christmas show with a round up as well as the hyper exploitation of Chinese workers making Christmas decorations.

The campaign to support the CFMEU and it's members continues, Esther Van Erand was an organiser with the union who was sacked for allegedly having a verbal altercation with journalist Nick McKenzie. This episode of stick together brings you the audio from an action in Melbourne outisde the fair work commission, as well as the regular segments of the show including union news a weekly wrap up of union activity from across the working world.

Today we go outside the Federal Court in Melbourne with National Tertiary Education Union members who are getting their day in court over the system wage theft they have experienced; we give an update on the UWU warehouse dispute with Woolworths; and the QUBE gaming of the Fair Work Act.

No doubt you’ve noticed the empty shelves at Woolworths stores across the Eastern states of Australia, and you’ve also heard that it’s owing to industrial action. On today's program, we speak with Dario Mujkic from the United Workers Union about the strike of 1800 Woolworths warehouse workers across 3 different states. Plus some union news.Support the strike fund here.

The UWU members working at Woolworths Warehouse sites handling liquor in Victoria and NSW and affecting some sites in Queensland are on indefinite strike leading up to Christmas. Dario Mujkic from the UWU spoke to Green Left 3cr on Friday November 22.We hear from a CFMEU organiser who was at the site of a death of a member at a Victorian Wind Farm recently.We go to the rally for Nurses and Midwives that stopped Sydney CBD on November 13th.

Stick Together is a half-hour weekly show about workers rights and current affairs. Stick Together features interviews with workers, unionists, community campaigners and academics from right across Australia.This episode of stick together speaks about the new changes to the NDIS with an interview from Greens senator Jordan Steele John.

Some highlights from the NSW stopwork rally against CFMEU administration on Tuesday 12 November. The NSW administrators engaged in intimidation and threats against workers to try to prevent the rally from going ahead, but you can’t stop genuine unionists from fighting for their right to have a democratic union and a choice in their representation.As well as some union news.Here's the link to the MEAA's gaza appealhttps://crm.meaa.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=15

Two features from the shop floor this week. First the experience of turning an unsafe workplace into one that is able to support its workers.Last week the 2024 Victoria Trades Hall Council HSR conference addressed the topic of OHS skills for active Health and Safety Representatives. We hear one of the featured workplace stories from the conference.  We follow up with part of a discussion between Autistic disability activist Shaun Bickley with Pryia Kunjan from 3cr Thursday Breakfast about the labour exploitation of disabled people with a focus on the issue of wage theft by Australian Disability Enterprises or ADEs.

On today’s program we come back to this issue of union solidarity for the struggle in Palestine. We will hear from rank and file unionist working for the public service, Judy McVey talk about the history so far with union support for the struggle, and why workers need to keep fighting.We will also continue our coverage of the CFMEU administration – last week on the show we covered the Westgate Bridge Collapse and how the CFMEU’s track record of improved workplace safety was born out of the devastation of that industrial disaster. Today we broadcast some speeches from a public meeting talking once again about the CFMEU’s track record of ensuring health and safety on site, as well as its support of migrant women in the workplace.